Old Street Claypot - Sunnybank

Quick weeknight dinner out this week and we stumbled on the Old Street Claypot on their opening night. With the long queues, it had my attention, and with the other places we were intending on trying out either closed or booked out, we got in line.

Despite being quite early in the night, the Bak Kut Teh was already entirely sold out, which meant half the things on the menu were already not available. The only thing left was its namesake, clay pots. So rather than ordering one, we got both meals as clay pots.

 

Claypot dishes are known to take a bit longer than usual, this meant that it wasn't really suited to a mass scale volume production that was being demanded that night. With roughly a dozen gas stoves, it took close to half an hour before we got our meals, and at that point one of them was already cold for being done long before the other. Being in a densely populated open air food court also meant that it was quite dangerous to carry a steaming hot clay pot back to our table without being at risk of walking into small children on our way back.

I had been most interested in the Chinese Sausage Claypot Rice. As a huge fan of lap cheung, there is nothing more that I enjoy more than eating it with rice. In this iteration, whilst the overall portion was fairly big, there was definitely not enough sausage or soy sauce to go with the rice at all. The rice was cooked through but it was definitely underdone and didn't have a sufficiently crispy bottom either. I could probably make better myself at home.

Our second dish was the claypot laksa, which was for some reason listed under the claypot rice heading. By the time we received it, it was barely lukewarm, having been made long before our sausage rice. There was an adequate amount of noodles in the pot but only two pieces of chicken. The flavours were quite good but I found the substance to be quite lacking. Unless drastic improvements are made, I don't see any rush to return in the near future. 

Price Range: $15 - $25pp

Taste: 6/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 6/10

Environment: 6/10

Espresso and Matcha's Eighth Anniversary

 Dear Readers,

Another year has passed and as always, I am pleasantly surprised to be able to share this anniversary with you. I think this year's reflection should be focused a on self care. You may have noticed I took a short hiatus a few months back, and have recently recalibrated my posting schedule. 

Little had I known that after all these years of writing, I had become a bit burnt out. Coupled with the rolling lockdowns at the start of the year, which then fed into the closure of a lot of places I wanted to try, along with some very persistent inflation when dining out, I had spent a lot more time learning to cook at home, to some success. Of course this meant my operations on this blog have had to scale down a bit. 

In the end, my goal for writing a blog has always been to provide quality content to the reader, and in writing less, I have been able to write with some renewed passion. Hopefully everything will pick up sooner than later when thing stabilise a bit, otherwise who knows, maybe one day this will become a cooking blog  (^.~)☆.

Anyway, as always, thank you for reading and joining me on my dining adventures.

-by Hsiaofu

Haeduri - Brisbane CBD

So it actually took several attempts after being turned away each time before we were finally able to get a table at Haeduri in the City. Despite being situated a little out of the way, from the real centre of the city, it's always packed every time we go. This time we finally decided to bite the bullet and take a 40 minute wait just to satisfy our curiosity.

 

Having to wait for such a long time definitely allowed us to go through the menu. There wasn't too many options but we had our hearts set on KFC. By the time we had our table, we were also immediately ready to order.

 

That day we tried their mint choco soju, which was on sale. It was without a doubt the worst soju I've ever tasted, like drinking mouth wash. This is coming from someone who loves mint chocolate and mint choc ice cream. It was very lucky we had three people to share it around, otherwise we would have wasted the majority of the bottle.

A friend of ours wanted the seaweed rice balls. There isn't too much to say about this other than it didn't come with as much rice as I would have imagined, an abundance of seaweed and a lot of mayonnaise. It was very tasty but we could have done with more, and the mayonnaise was fairly unusual in this dish.

We also had a serve of Korean steamed egg. Having mastered this art at home, it was fairly standard compared to what I could make. They either made it with water or some very light broth and wasn't as flavoursome as chicken soup would have made it, but the texture was quite nice regardless.

Our main event of the day was of course the Korean Fried Chicken. By the time we ordered, most of the flavours were already sold out. We settled on soy, original and spring onion. Ironically when we asked them for an extra serve of mayonnaise in which to dip the chicken (because it was so dry), we were advised that they had no mayonnaise, despite how much was put on top of the seaweed rice. Anyway the chicken was quite dry on the outside, a little bit more moist on the inside but could do with more flavour. All in all, I've definitely had better chicken at other places. Despite the crowds, I really think that Haeduri was not worth the hype, next time I'll just stick to momo chicken instead.

Price Range: $15 - $25

Taste: 6/10

Value: 7/10

Service: 6/10

Environment: 6/10

Fika - Brisbane CBD

It's been a short while since I've been quite excited about an opening, but I was absolutely thrilled to see the completion of Inter/Section on Charlotte Street. Comprised of Coffee Anthology, The Whisk and Fika, I've already gone there a couple of times for the croissants but waited for an opportunity to have their food. Luckily for me, I had the company of fellow foodie, Yenny who came out to the city to catch up on her day off.

We were navigated to a booth quickly upon arriving and given a menu. This comprised of food and drink from all three shops. I liked the highly specialised drink options as well as the asian fusion cafe food from fika and pastries from the Whisk.

 

I had a cold brew and Yenny had a mocha. Both were well received. Having already enjoyed a milk based coffee earlier in the day, this was a refreshing change. Cool and crisp without being too bitter or acidic, it was very smooth and definitely hit the spot.

I ordered the Tuna salad “nicoise” which came with torched tuna, green beans, potato and some fried dough. I liked the tuna which was fresh and generously cut. Although the salad wasn't particularly big, it was wholesome and didn't leave me hungry, largely because of the generous amount of potato in the dish. I liked the fried dough, which was quite flakey but not too light either. 

Yenny had the lamb gnocchi which I was lucky enough to try. Again the portions weren't too big. If I were more hungry, I think it would go well with a pastry from Whisk. Anyway the gnocchi was pillowy soft and soaked up the lamb juices well. The lamb was also tender and not gamey. I would probably rate it higher if there was more and if there was more lamb to go with the gnocchi. 

We had a really good time at Inter/Section and I'll definitely back for both mid morning snacks as well as their main meals.  

Price Range: $20 - $30pp

Taste: 8.5/10

Value: 8/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 8/10

Lune - Burnett Lane

Ever since Lune opened its doors at South Brisbane, I have still been able to exercise some level of self constraint in not going there too regularly to blow out the diet. This was largely due to the fact that the location still wasn't entirely convenient to me. Unfortunately this all changed when they decided to open their satellite shop in Burnett Lane, which is right in the middle of my trek from the bus stop to my work. Alas, it may be time to increase my gym routine soon. What's more enabling is the fact that there isn't much of a queue and you can go in and out easily within 10 minutes. 

In this instance, I went for a quick breakfast with Dr L before his most recent exam. We opted to dine in for our meal at the small bench made available for patrons. Our food and drink came out within 5 minutes of ordering.

Drinks wise, I had the filter coffee whilst he had the mocha. My filter was dark and strong bodied with a good hit of caffeine. His mocha was sweet and not too strong with a rich frothy milk. Both drinks were really good and a strong contender for the competitive coffee scene in Brisbane.

As always, I can't go past a pain croissant. This was flakey, rich and buttery without being too oily. The size was perfect and every layer was light and delicate. I could have at least five of these.

Originally, I was inclined to get the August blue cheese special, however as we were lining up, we noticed that the pain au chocolates had just come out of the oven, so we made a last minute decision to change our minds. This was definitely the right choice. Straight out of the oven, it was warm and crisp with a fluffy interior and rich bittersweet chocolate. Suffice to say it was without a doubt the best croissant I've had in a very long time. Next time I'll definitely have to stake out whatever they make fresh again.

Price Range: $10 - $20pp

Taste: 9.5/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 8/10